With the rapid development of network technology and various information technologies, the range of content accessible to users gradually eliminates temporal and spatial limits, and greatly increases the probability that users will be exposed to such content as pornography, violence and viruses that are unhealthy and menacing to the client terminals, so that there is an ever-increasing demand for the screening of communication content. Currently available screening technologies include list screening technology, keyword screening technology, template screening technology, categorization screening technology, and so on.
Referring to FIG. 1, which is a structural schematic view illustrating a conventional Categorization Based Content Screening (CBCS) system, the system mainly comprises two parts: a content categorization providing entity 201 and a content screening unit 202. In practical application, the CBCS system 200 may simultaneously include these two units, and it is also possible for the two units to constitute a server. That is, the categorization providing entity 201 and the content screening unit 202 can operate in the same and single server. It is further possible for the two units to separately operate each in a different server, in which case networking and deployment are carried out upon actual demand. The content screening unit 202 in the CBCS system 200 and the content categorization request entity 100 (such as a content provider) external to the CBCS system 200 can both obtain categorical information of a certain content from the content categorization providing entity 201 via a CBCS-1 interface, and the content categorization providing entity 201 further provides a CBCS-3 interface capable of associating content information with category upon request. The internal and the external entities that request operations from the content categorization providing entity via the CBCS-1 interface and the CBCS-3 interface uniformly are called as the content categorization request entity 100, where the request operations include requesting content categorization and requesting association of content with category.
At present, with the development of the content categorization interfaces such as the CBCS-1 interface, the interfaces have been gradually multiplied in types from the initial simple modes (such as output of category obtained via content or content-introduced input) to involve multiplicity of parameters (such as the content categorization rule, content identification, digital abstract algorithm, and digital signature algorithm, etc.). These parameters are present with plural choices and possibilities; for example, the content categorization rule includes the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), etc. On the other hand, besides the parameters involved in the CBCS-1 request message, the response message also involves some parameters. Similarly, the content categorization providing entity associates the content information with the category, and it likewise deals with the similar problems of a plurality of selections and determinations of the parameters supported by the content categorization providing entity. With the enrichment of such categorization processing, parameters are simultaneously generated that are supported by different content categorization entities (including the content categorization request entity and the content categorization providing entity). In other words, the categorization abilities might be different.
In view of the conventional systems discussed above, the inventors found during implementation of the present invention that the categorizing ability of the content categorization providing entity relates to many aspects and corresponds to multiplicity of parameters, but there lacks an explicit and efficient mechanism for categorization ability negotiation between the content categorization request entity and the content categorization providing entity. The result is often that the content categorization providing entity cannot categorize the content for the provided content information or associate the content with the category, or that the content categorization result provided by the content categorization providing entity is rendered invalid, thus severely affecting the validity of content categorization or association.